ASDI: Week One Summary

A wonderful group!

Side lifts...

...and slicing through space...

...and some much-needed constructive rest.

A hibiscus from Scott's front yard. There are dozens of these beautiful flowers, in both white and red, all of them as big as my head.

This is where we relax and share meals after a day of teaching.

A view of the corn field and hills behind Scott's house.

Wednesday night's bonfire.

The neighbor's cat that bit me at Wednesday night's bonfire. I guess I'm not a cat-whisperer afterall.

All in all, a great week. Carla arrived this evening and we start Week Two tomorrow morning.

Updates to follow,

Joan

Photos by Marissa Gloriosso & Joan Meggitt

Allegheny Summer Dance Intensive: Week One Coming to a Close

Today marks the official end of Week One of the annual Allegheny Summer Dance Intensive; although I do have one more class tomorrow morning. The students have been great! As movers they are enthusiastic and have committed to a rigorous schedule. As observers of one another's work, they are well-spoken, thoughtful and detail-oriented.

The Ladies of Antaeus - Heather, Sherri & Marissa - left for Cleveland this afternoon. It has been really nice to give/take class with them this week. Sherri returns for Week Two and Carla joins us from New York City.

We had a lovely evening by the fire on Wednesday, and enjoyed what is fast becoming a tradition for us - regaling one another with stories while consuming s'mores. Many thanks are owed to our friend and host, Scott, for indulging us. I look forward to more stories with Sherri and Carla next week. In the mean time, I am making final preparations for the fall semester at Kent State University. My colleagues are in meetings this week and I will join them next Saturday for entrance auditions.

During the intensive, I am re-mounting FFA: Fairy Flight Academy by Holly Labbe Cole on a double-cast of Allegheny College students. I will be doing the same with a single cast from the Kent Dance Ensemble in October. The former will perform in PA in December and the latter at KSU next April. The Allegheny students have learned half the piece in three short rehearsals (roughly 4.5 hours total). This is no mean feat considering their rehearsal comes after a full day of dancing and I am one for making frequent changes. They are patient with my mistakes - it's been a while since the last FFA - and are keeping up with the material. Working with two casts [plus two understudies] can sometimes be messy, but everyone has been gracious and attentive.

Until next week,
Joan

Photos by Heather Koniz

Day One...again

Aside from my single most recent blog - full of promises as of yet unkept and otherwise unmet - it has been one year since my last post. I feel a bit like I am confessing this: Forgive me followers, for I have sinned; it has been one year since my last post...

I am once again in Meadville, PA directing and teaching the annual Allegheny Summer Dance Intensive with Antaeus Dance. It is a delightfully cool evening and I am living in a place where there is neither light nor sound pollution. This year I have 28 students, many of them new to me. They are a lovely group and day one has left me exhausted - happily so.

I always get a bit nostalgic here at my Alma Mater; but the real joy of being here is being with the students. Time was when I really knew who these kids were. I was one of them after all. But that was 20 years ago now and walking into the studio today is like walking into a new country, or even onto a different planet.

What I truly relish is being in that moment of knowing what my intentions are but not knowing how they will take shape. At one point, I told the students that we are all professional improvisors. We do it everyday in our speech and meeting of one another and think nothing of it. It is the same with teaching - the improvising that is. At our best, students and teachers alike, we meet one another and participate in dialogue. We receive, consider, ask and respond equally. Today, I was aware of it - riding the wave and seeing myself riding the wave all at the same time - and in that millimoment there was true bliss. And then I named it, recognized it, tried to catch it and it was gone.

But I am still remembering that moment, when I veered away from the plan but stayed true to the intention.

There was laughter, in me and the students. Not in knowing or claiming to know or in holding on to what was happening, but simply in being in that moment.

Joan

Wanton Hours

I am experiencing an unexpected windfall today - TIME. Unscheduled. Unstructured. Uninterrupted. UNBELIEVABLE! If it weren't for all of the work that needs doing, I wouldn't quite know what to do with myself. I always think that, when I get time, I will use it to reflect...on teaching, creating, living, etc. Most often, though, the reflection happens while driving to work each morning and home again each night, while doing the dishes or sweeping the floor or wrapping up the garbage, while trying to fall asleep at night or desperately clinging to sleep the next morning. I look at time with a kind of nostalgia. It always seems like I had so much more of it once. This cannot be true though, because I cannot remember a time when I was not engaged in more than enough for two or three people.

Of late, my time has been devoted to: teaching and all of its related responsibilities, including the creation of an on-line course that I will teach at KSU this summer; and completing Prospect & Refuge for Antaeus Dance, which premieres May 19-22, 2011 at CPT. Of course, there is being a wife, daughter and sister - somethings which never get enough time and which are sweeter, truly, than anything else here mentioned.

Obviously, blogging falls far down on the list of things that get a piece of the time pie. My last entry came at the end of the annual Allegheny Summer Dance Intensive, something for which I am once again preparing.

Over the next several days, and then weeks, I will be reflecting on the final days of Prospect & Refuge. It has been a lengthy and, at times, complex process. My hope is that you will make time to see the dancework in Cleveland Public Theatre's Gordon Square Theatre May 19th through 22nd.

Until next time,
Joan

Allegheny Summer Dance Intensive: Eleven Years & Running

Two weeks ago I completed my eleventh annual Allegheny Summer Dance Intensive as director and lead instructor. I took the intensive in 1993 and started teaching it in 1999. The first year was a solo endeavor, and quite a challenging one. Wherever did I get the energy for that? After that I worked with a number of different fellow dance artists, each usually for a couple years at a time. This summer was a transition year. As I mentioned in a previous post, Antaeus Dance bid farewell to founding company member Shanna in May. While Sherri has been teaching a variety of classes for the past five or so years (anatomy, yoga, massage), Heather and Carla were new faculty. I was impressed with their inaugural work in the program, and the students truly appreciated what each of them had to offer.

While the faculty has changed every couple of years, the student body remains fairly consistent. They are young, curious, intelligent, full of energy (though all of us tend to have a little less starch by the end of the first week), and lovely all around. I am returning to Allegheny this weekend to rehearse Recent Deviations, a dance that nine intensive participants will perform as part of Antaeus Dance's fall concert, October 16th at 8:00pm in Montgomery Performance Space. I must say that these young dancers impressed the heck out of me. They learned a rather complex piece in 8 short rehearsals, on top of taking classes all day and attending evening sessions as well. I am really looking forward to their performance!

Joan

Photo from the end of Week Two by Joan Meggitt

ASDI - Final Night

We began with a fire and s'mores...and so we ended. This evening Scott built another lovely fire and we gathered around it for company and conversation. Scott, Sherri, Carla, Doug and I spent the better part of the evening enjoying one another's company and a beautifual evening. The following is a sample of what every night here sounds like.

Tomorrow we conclude the intensive and go our separate ways. Sherri and I will see one another again soon in rehearsal. Carla and I say farewell for another year. As with Heather and Marissa, it has been such a pleasure to spend time with these women. I look forward to next year!

Joan

Video by Joan Meggitt

Prospect & Refuge: Moving In

Doug and I walked through the old factory this afternoon. Today, I was struck by the windows - cracked, broken, stained. Each pane is such a simple, beautiful statement, complete and evocative on its own; and all of it simply by chance. There is a lot of debris in the building. It is an odd assortment of old materials from the production of woven rayon parachute cords, and miscellaneous other implements that have landed there over the years. There is a great amount of detritus from the building itself - rust, glass, metal pieces, wood. There are also many signs of new/continued life - vines, moss, leavings from birds and small animals that roost/live there, etc.

We found a door with a metal piece sitting out in the middle of the roof outside of "the penthouse." Between the penthouse, the farmhouse and the woods, the dancers are in for an adventure.
More to follow,
Joan

Photos by Joan Meggitt

Allegheny Summer Dance Intensive: Week One

We have just finished the first week of the annual Allegheny Summer Dance Intensive at Allegheny College in Meadville, PA. The students are lovely, the instructors are great (of course), and the schedule is full. We run two different technique classes daily, a combined improvisation and composition class, and a rehearsal for participants who will perform with the Company in our fall concert at the College. There were also masssage workshops two evenings this week. Several mornings have been spent practicing yoga and/or cycling the 7 hilly miles to the dance center. It was a great pleasure to welcome Heather to the faculty and to, once again, work with Sherri. This year we were joined by company member Marissa. I know that the students enjoyed dancing with the ladies.

I taught the final technique class of the week this morning; after which Doug and I walked the woods where Antaeus Dance will be filming for Prospect & Refuge in two weeks. One bit of bad news: The farmhouse we were planning on using was torn down. It was falling down, to be sure, and had been standing for decades; but we were hoping to get one more year out of it. Doug is scouting a new location.

Tomorrow, former company member Carla arrives, and we jump back into classes Monday morning. Nine students are learning Recent Deviations, a piece I choreographed for the KSU Dance Division in 2008. The Allegheny students are enthusiastic and we covered a little over half the choreography in our first four rehearsals. We will finish the piece on Thursday and share it with the group on Friday. I will come back to rehearse them in the fall before their performance with AD. They are doing well and I am excited to see them perform!

Right now, I am enjoying some quiet at the home of a friend, to both me and Antaeus Dance. It has been really nice to have a home to return to each night, and to be in such good company...a place to prepare and share meals together, a place to rest and rejunvenate at the end of each day. Our first night, Scott built a great fire and we sat around it talking and roasting s'mores. I can't tell you the last time I did that. What a way to start! It is wonderfully quiet here at night and truly dark save for the stars. There is a great view from the swing out back.

I am looking forward to the second week of the intensive!
Joan

Photos by Joan Meggitt

Much to Report

There is much to report on the Antaeus Dance home front. Summer classes come to an end tomorrow evening. FALL CLASSES BEGIN AUGUST 24th and run through October 28th. These mixed-level classes are Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6:00 to 7:30pm in the beautiful Antaeus Dance studio at Pilgrim Church in Tremont.

The Company leaves for Pennsylvania this Sunday for the annual Allegheny Summer Dance Intensive at Allegheny College in Meadville. I have been directing this intensive for the past 10 years and look forward to it every year. This year Heather Koniz, Sherri Mills and former company member Carla Monzo will be teaching classes along with yours truly.

The Company returns to PA a week after the intensive to film for Prospect & Refuge (more on that below).

Catch us at Pandemonium at CPT on Saturday, September 11th. If you've never been, you must. It's a great party for an even greater cause.

Participants from the summer intensive will perform in Antaeus Dance's annual fall concert at the College, this year on Saturday, October 16th. We will be performing much of the work from our recent Home Front concert, featuring dances by Jenita McGowan and Marissa Glorioso.

After that the company focuses on the Prospect & Refuge project with dance maker and performance artist Doug Lodge, film maker Cynthia Penter, and composer Bill Sallak. Parts of the work were unveiled in Cleveland Public Theatre's DanceWorks 2010 series. The full premiere will be in the Gordon Square Theatre May 19-22, 2011 as part of DanceWorks 2011.

Last, but not least, Antaeus Dancers Shanna Sheline and Sherri Mills are featured in photographs by Rev. Tricia Gilbert at Truffles Pastry Shop (11122 Clifton Boulevard). They will be up through August 2oth.

More to come!

Joan

Photo: Dancing Windows by Tricia Gilbert

Shout Out to Dan

Antaeus Dance is entering it's 10th season! We began with an evening-length dancework, Inherent Vices, back in November of 2001; and we're premiering our fifth, Prospect & Refuge, at Cleveland Public Theatre May 19 -22, 2011.

There have been many, many wonderful people who have been involved with and helped Antaeus Dance over the years. One of those individuals is Dan Kilbane. I met Dan at CPT some years back and we continue to meet there over and again. He has guided us through many a performance with a combination of talent, charm, humor and professionalism. Dan is good people.

Dan, it was a pleasure to see you yestereday and I look forward to many happy returns.

Joan

The WHY Collective

On Sunday, May 9th Antaeus Dance appeared with The Why Collective, one of Cleveland's foremost anarco-dadaist neoclassical free jazz revolutionary electronic crypto mystical open form collaborative arts ensembles. Antaeus Dance has participated in two Why Collective events. The most recent was Blind Alchemy. I have included a video of our performance. Blind Alchemy III. "Blind Alchemy" is composed/performed by Greg D'Alessio (Why Collective guru), Alexander Bonus, Paul Cox, Jenna Lyle and Antaeus Dancers Amy Compton, Joan Meggitt and Sherri Mills. The dancing begins around the five-minute mark. Greg had this to say about the work: "This is a piece built around some improvising Greg, Paul and Alex did, that we will meta -improvise on tot he improvised singing and dancing of Jenna and Antaeus..."

Enjoy!

Joan

Video courtesy of Sherri Mills and posted with permission from Greg D'Alessio.

Summer Classes

Antaeus Dance will offer summer classes in modern dance technique on Tuesday and Thursday evenings from 6:00pm to 7:30pm in the Company's studio in Pilgrim Congregational Church. Classes begin Thursday, June 3rd and will run through Thursday, August 5th. These are company classes which are open to the public (intermediate/advanced level movers).

The Antaeus Dance studio is, hands down, the most beautiful and inspiring dance space in Cleveland. A gorgeous rose window graces the upstage wall, and the downstage wall offers a view of the sanctuary through a set of four arches. To see some other spaces around Pilgrim Congregational Church, an historic landmark in Tremont, look below! Cleave is a film by Cynthia Penter featuring Doug Lodge and me, with original music by Bill Sallak. Verge is the live dance that accompanied the film at Antaeus Dance's recent premiere at CPT in April.

Prospect & Refuge: cleave/verge from Bill Sallak on Vimeo.

But I digress...

I will be teaching the summer classes. My training has been devoted to the modern dance technique of Erick Hawkins, which I have studied under numerous Hawkins company members, most notably Kelly Holt, James Reedy, Cynthia Reynolds and Gloria McLean. The modern dance technique of Erick Hawkins integrates strength and vulnerability, cultivates grounded elegance, and embraces dynamic subtlety. Classes will utilize Hawkins' principles, including his innovative relationship to time, through athletic phrases that develop out of concise floor and center work. I like to call this work: Living out loud by dancing from within!


Also on the horizon is the annual Allegheny Summer Dance Intensive in Meadville, PA. I have directed this intensive since 1999. Sherri Mills has been an instructor for several years now, most recently offering classes in yoga and massage. We are delighted to be joined this year by Antaeus Dancer Heather Koniz and former Company member Carla Monzo.

Antaeus Dance will be making appearances with the Why Collective this Sunday, May 9th at 8:00pm in Drinko Recital Hall on the campus of Cleveland State University, and with trideaDANCE on Saturday, May 22nd in Tiffin, OH. After that, we begin work on Antaeus Dance's 10th Season!

I hope to see you in the studio this summer!

Joan

Photo of Antaeus Dance Studio at Pilgrim Congregational Church by Joan Meggitt.

Cleave used with permission from Doug Lodge, Joan Meggitt, Cynthia Penter and Bill Sallak.

Photo of Sherri Mills and Heather Koniz in Meggitt's Prospect & Refuge: Stray by Matt Bliss.

Two Weeks Past

Antaeus Dance premiered select excerpts from its ongoing evening-length collaboration Prospect & Refuge at Cleveland Public Theatre at the close of DanceWorks 2010. The performances were well received by the public and the work was reviewed by Plain Dealer critic Donald Rosenberg. The dancers are on a well-deserved break before preparing for our next performance. The Company will make a guest appearance at the trideaDANCE concert in Tiffin, Ohio at the historic Ritz Theatre Saturday, May 23rd at 7:30pm.

Once that is complete, the Company will continue work on the Prospect & Refuge project, heading out to Pennsylvania for more filming. Cynthia Penter's first film, Cleave, will soon be available for online viewing. It was a great pleasure to work with dancers Amy Notley and Desmond Davis again! The last time I worked with them together was on a project called Burn the Heavens. Also, new to the group was guest artist Sara Lawrence-Sucato. It was wonderful to work with her as well. All three will be continuing to work on the project, as well as Amy Compton, Marissa Gloriosso, Heather Koniz and Sherri Mills. The company is preparing to say farewell to founding member Shanna Sheline.

More on P & R as it happens. More on Shanna as I am able to speak of her without being overcome with emotion. Coming up: Summer Offerings.

Joan

Photo of Shanna Sheline supporting Marissa Gloriosso by Joan Meggitt

Two Weeks Out

Antaeus Dance's performance of select premiere excerpts from Prospect & Refuge opens in two weeks. We are part of a double-bill with Travesty Dance Group/Cleveland, a local company directed by friend and colleague Kimberly Karpanty. TDG will premiere Kim's full-length work Dawning. The companies are a good match in several ways. Kim and I definitely overlap in aesthetics, yet we have distinct voices and very different ways of speaking. The intersection of individual and community is important to both of us and serves as a fairly consistent theme in our work.

Kim is a marvelous choreographer, creating extended, complex movement phrases, seemingly in the blink of a eye. I have always been more of a slow-cooker myself, taking time to develop movement ideas and, of late, working closely with the dancers in finding and exploring movement. These different personalities and approaches of the two companies yield a rich diversity in the works.

Prospect & Refuge is an ongoing evening-length project that will premiere in full in the spring of 2011. It began, rather unexpectedly, with Verb Ballets in early 2009. I had been developing ideas and movement for a new evening-length, already bearing the given title, when I was invited to be a part of the Cleveland All Stars concert (more recently called Fresh Inventions). I decided to use the opportunity to explore one idea, Stray, in advance of working with Antaeus Dance. The eight dancers of Verb Ballets were lovely and I enjoyed the time I spent with them.

After that, I continued to develop Stray into a longer piece for the twelve members of the Kent Dance Ensemble at Kent State University. At the same time, I began work with long-time dance partner and fellow dance maker Doug Lodge in rural Pennsylvania, brainstorming and visiting potential film sites, including an abandoned factory and a condemned farm house. In October of 2009, while the company was in Meadville for it's annual fall concert at Allegheny College, we filmed the dancers over the course of two days in site-specific improvisations on a theme. I returned to PA in January of this year to work with Doug on a duet that was later filmed in the bell tower at Pilgrim Congregational Church by media artist Cynthia Penter.

Having finished my work with the Kent Dance Ensemble, I then began to rework Stray for the eight dancers in the Antaeus Dance Prospect & Refuge project and have been running both versions (similar though not identical) in their respective venues. The KSU students contributed greatly to the work, willingly exploring ideas and successfully meeting challenges that I put before them. They have my hearty thanks for bringing the work forth so clearly!

While all of this was going on, I was endeavoring to move other parts of the dance forward. This turned out to be a challenge given that my entree into the work had been so highly structured and I was attempting to engage the Antaeus Dancers in a more collaborative process while also working with a second dance artist and a composer and a film maker. All of this brings us to Cleveland Public Theatre's DanceWorks 2010. The Company will premiere four sections of Prospect & Refuge. The overarching idea for me has been the creation of a thematic modular dance, one that can change with time and venue, one that does not always appear in the same order in which it was last presented, one which plays with perspective through both film and live dance, and one which allows everyone involved to contribute to the process.

I look forward to seeing you at the premiere!

Joan

Photo 1 of Heather Koniz supporting Amy Compton by Joan Meggitt.

Photo 2 of Travesty Dance Group/Cleveland in Dawning by Bob Christy.

Photo 3 of the Bell Tower in Pilgrim Church by Joan Meggitt.

Photo 4 of Kent Dance Ensemble members in Stray by Bob Christy.

Home Front Retrospective

Last month Antaeus Dance presented Home Front at Pilgrim Congregational Church. While the concert was produced later than initially planned, it was well worth the wait. Marissa Glorioso's performance of her solo Apologia was a moving combination of strength and vulnerability. Jenita's new quartet Romani was delightfully dynamic and her premiere of Heart's Terrain, created with dancer Sherri Mills, was quite evocative. As much as I prefer to stay behind the scenes, I enjoyed dancing with both Kim Karpanty and the Company in Straight Foward & Slightly Off Kilter and Drift In, Drop Out. The concert closed with a reprise of Rustbelt, one of Jenita's homages to the place we all call home.

More posts to come on Prospect & Refuge. The Company will be sharing premiere excerpts at Cleveland Public Theatre April 15-18, 2010.

Joan

Photo of Sherri Mills and Amy Compton in Jenita McGowan's Romani by Simone Jowell